There are more voices than houses, more choirs
than churches, in the city, and anyway, only the dogs
know where the city ends. The past contains more
cities than the future, where they are built from blocks
of stone, grass, flesh. There is more than one last city.

The lost children were going to the city, but
the city is not the city – just another form
the forest takes. All the cities are in other lands,
even this one, where I left my skin on the train.
The cities of the Alaskan plain have aquamarine walls.

City nights fall but rarely settle. Some cities only ever
held a dozen people, others fell suddenly, at dawn.
The men and women of the Twin Cities take it in turns,
each alone in their hemisphere, to watch moons rise.
Love does not live in the city, but all the lovers do.